Does anybody here enjoy cooking? I don't, which is why I survive mostly on microwave meals, but sometimes I'll whip something up in the crock pot. What about you guys? Do you like cooking, and what do you like to cook?

We cook a lot--tacos, spaghetti, smoked sausage, burgers, etc. like most people I guess. We do breakfast for supper once a week, often pancakes, but lately I've been making omelets or just a mixture of scrambled eggs, breakfast sausage, bell peppers and cheese. Make a bunch and eat off it for a couple of days.

Honestly, I could live off omelets, Mexican, and pizza, and be just fine.

My wife is from the south, so we get some good gumbo in the colder months.

Even if you don't like cooking, you can do a lot better than microwave meals. Fry up some bratwurst or Italian sausage and put it in a hoagy roll with sriracha. Fold some chicken (or chorizo), cheese, and salsa into a tortilla and toast that on the stove for a decent quesadilla. Put roast beef, cheese, and onions on ciabatta and pop it in the oven (heck, in the microwave) for a nice panini. Buy some diced ham and make an omelette with it (tip: throw a bit of mozzarella into the eggs when you're beating them; add pepper flakes too if you want a bit of a kick). Boil a couple ears of corn or steam some broccoli and serve with a rotisserie chicken from the deli. This stuff takes no effort at all and 10-20 minutes of your time, and even the least demanding meal will still probably taste and definitely feel better than anything from the frozen aisle. It's cheaper for what you get, too.

I miss the stove at my parents house. It was electric coil, but the coil was underneath a thin sheet of glass so that the entire oven was perfectly level. My apartment's burners are lopsided which makes cooking on them hard.

Do you have access to a BBQ grill? Steak is the easiest, if the good cuts are too expensive you can always marinade it and it will taste terrific. If you like fajitas, flank steak is super easy and feeds a ton. Chicken breasts are also easy. Buy a pre-made marinade and you're good to go. Reserve a bit before using to baste on right before taking off the grill. For veggies I like to use skewers for kabobs as again it's super easy and looks great. I spent years doing that. If you ever get worried about under cooking something, I'd highly recommend an instant read thermometer. That way you won't over cook and dry it out.

Now, if I get a chance I play on my smoker. It's a Rec Tec and works as my grill as well. Pork butts are super forgiving and easy to cook up. For ribs I tend to go with the stupid simple 3-2-1 method. Three hours smoking, 2 hours wrapped, 1 hour unwrapped. But again it goes to how the meat feels. You can wiggle it and see how much give it has. I've been trying my hand at brisket, that's a bit more tricky. I've cooked three of them so far. My second one turned out and tasted nearly as good as anything I've ever had in my entire life. My third one was more of a meh. The cut of meat makes all the difference if everything else stood the same.

For smokers you can go super low tech and get a much less expensive one. That's how I got hooked on trying different things. With a kid I no longer had the opportunity to sit outside on a beautiful day and drink beer all day while tending the fire. Now, with a pellet smoker you set it, walk away for about 8 hours, come back, and it's done. I get the meat cooked the why I want without having to give up an entire Saturday to do it. I use a wireless thermometer to keep tabs on the meat and grill. I tend to fire it up at 7 PM for brisket and in the morning wrap it and it let it go to about 202 F then set in a cooler to rest for an hour.

For winter time and when I'm short of time, sous vide is the way to go. If you can fill a pot with water you can cook a perfect steak, pork chop and chicken. It's a super accurate water heater that cooks items to the exact temp you want and holds the temp indefinitely. It allows you to cook super thick cuts of meat all the way through for a perfect Medium/Medium Rare temp. And then all you have to do is sear all sides in a pan and you're done. It's nearly dummy proof. With Minnesota winters sometimes getting a bit long in the tooth it's great for getting a perfect steak.

I tried using Blue Apron thinking it would be a great way to make a few healthy, home cooked meals. The best part of Blue Apron is that I felt that it really is teaching you how to cook. You really learn the fundementals. The only thing I didn't like about was that it would take me an hour and a half to 2 hours to cook dinner. I must be the world's slowest chopper or something. Regardless, if you want to learn to cook, it's a great thing to try. It just takes me too long to cook it. The food was excellent though.

Do you have access to a BBQ grill? Steak is the easiest, if the good cuts are too expensive you can always marinade it and it will taste terrific. If you like fajitas, flank steak is super easy and feeds a ton. Chicken breasts are also easy. Buy a pre-made marinade and you're good to go. Reserve a bit before using to baste on right before taking off the grill. For veggies I like to use skewers for kabobs as again it's super easy and looks great. I spent years doing that. If you ever get worried about under cooking something, I'd highly recommend an instant read thermometer. That way you won't over cook and dry it out.

Now, if I get a chance I play on my smoker. It's a Rec Tec and works as my grill as well. Pork butts are super forgiving and easy to cook up. For ribs I tend to go with the stupid simple 3-2-1 method. Three hours smoking, 2 hours wrapped, 1 hour unwrapped. But again it goes to how the meat feels. You can wiggle it and see how much give it has. I've been trying my hand at brisket, that's a bit more tricky. I've cooked three of them so far. My second one turned out and tasted nearly as good as anything I've ever had in my entire life. My third one was more of a meh. The cut of meat makes all the difference if everything else stood the same.

For smokers you can go super low tech and get a much less expensive one. That's how I got hooked on trying different things. With a kid I no longer had the opportunity to sit outside on a beautiful day and drink beer all day while tending the fire. Now, with a pellet smoker you set it, walk away for about 8 hours, come back, and it's done. I get the meat cooked the why I want without having to give up an entire Saturday to do it. I use a wireless thermometer to keep tabs on the meat and grill. I tend to fire it up at 7 PM for brisket and in the morning wrap it and it let it go to about 202 F then set in a cooler to rest for an hour.

For winter time and when I'm short of time, sous vide is the way to go. If you can fill a pot with water you can cook a perfect steak, pork chop and chicken. It's a super accurate water heater that cooks items to the exact temp you want and holds the temp indefinitely. It allows you to cook super thick cuts of meat all the way through for a perfect Medium/Medium Rare temp. And then all you have to do is sear all sides in a pan and you're done. It's nearly dummy proof. With Minnesota winters sometimes getting a bit long in the tooth it's great for getting a perfect steak.

I tried using Blue Apron thinking it would be a great way to make a few healthy, home cooked meals. The best part of Blue Apron is that I felt that it really is teaching you how to cook. You really learn the fundementals. The only thing I didn't like about was that it would take me an hour and a half to 2 hours to cook dinner. I must be the world's slowest chopper or something. Regardless, if you want to learn to cook, it's a great thing to try. It just takes me too long to cook it. The food was excellent though.

Love to cook, it's an absolute passion of mine. Gonna sound like a pompous tool here, but I don't care. I cook everything, from beef brisket to thai-chicken curry to miso marinaded black cod, to shrimp scampi to lobster with a basil-cognac cream sauce. I even love going grocery shopping. I'll go to 5 different places just to get the best protein and vegetables.

My wife cooks like 5 times a year. The kitchen is my domain, and I have a ton of kitchen gadgets, although I'm running out of room to put stuff. I usually ask my wife what she wants either by protein or by nationality. I like cooking French, Japanese, Thai, North African, and Mexican. Even my two kids are pretty adventurous when it comes to trying different foods. One of their favorite dishes that I make is Thai style mussels (with coconut milk, fish sauce, white wine, and Kafir lime leaves). I think you can learn so much about a culture through their food. There isn't much I won't eat. Sometimes my dishes don't come out well, but for me, that's part of the process.

I don't have a barbecue grill (I live in an apartment and don't trust my neighbors, haha) but I do have a George Foreman grill. Does that count? I've thought about trying Blue Apron, but I'm afraid I'd just be wasting money. I'm the guy who can follow a recipe step for step, and it'll still come out wrong.